The War Plotters of Wall Street
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HG WAR TIERS of \sfoMtreet CHARLES' A. COLL.AVAN: Price 25 Cents THE WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET BY CHARLES A. COLLMAN THE FATHERLAND CORPORATION NEW YORK 1915 v Copyright, 1915, by THE FATHERLAND CORPORATION COXTEXTS CHAPTER PAGE I. YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT 7 II. THE WAR STOCK GAMBLERS 16 III. THE CURTAIN RAISED ON WALL STREET'S UNDERWORLD . 26 IV. WALL STREET'S BRITISH GOLD PLOT 37 V. OUR BANKRUPT "LADY OF THE SNOWS" 48 VI. THE CRIME OF THE YEAR 1915 59 VII. THE SHAM PEACE SOCIETIES 68 VIII. RED LIGHTS AHEAD! 78 IX. THE "AMERICAN" PILGRIMS 88 X. THE MEN WHO TOASTED THE CZAR 98 XI. WHO is USING OUR LIFE INSURANCE FUNDS? 105 XII. Is WALL STREET USING SAVINGS BANK DEPOSITS IN SECRET LOANS TO RUSSIA, FRANCE AND ENGLAND? .... 119 XIII. THE GREAT NEWS CONSPIRACY How UNSCRUPULOUS NEWS- PAPER OWNERS, AT THE BEHEST OF WALL STREET, DE- LIBERATELY DECEIVED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE . 131 333432 PREFACE These stories were written under fire, at a time when treason stalked through the land. They are human records of the amaz- ing acts of men who schemed and strove and plotted to blind ninety million people. Then these men, with immense cunning, set themselves to work at a game that is old as history. They coined great fortunes for themselves from the mad passions and blind hatreds they had instilled into their fellow-men. We, who tried to expose these conspirators, were villified, threatened, hounded by the most powerful and unscrupulous band that ever organized itself to ruin a country and its people in the interest of a foreign race. Even to-night, as I write these lines, the plots proceed apace (October 22, 1915) . Wall Street millionaires are calling on Con- gress to expend a billion and a quarter dollars in the coming year, most of it on armament. They have sent the war stocks skyward. Bethlehem Steel the leader, with a gain of 59 points in a single afternoon, for they expect huge dividends to be paid on the hundreds of millions that will flow into their pockets from the ''National Defense." They have announced that they shall elect Elihu Root, the Wall Street corporation lawyer, as their President. England has deserted her ally, the Serb. The Germans are marching on Constantinople. Some plots have miscarried. Other war plots are brewing for the further enrichment of financiers. Shall we let them succeed, these fearful crimes planned by the men who, for a long year, have hoodwinked us, used us as their pawns THE WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET ? CHARLES A. COLLMAX. WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET i. YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT One autumn day as I was passing the corner of Wall and Broad Streets, where the new but rather unsightly home of J. P. Morgan & Co. had just been erected, a friend, one of the leading financial writers of the Street, seized me by the arm, and pointing across the way, he exclaimed: "Do you see that stone there, streaked with red in the front wall of Morgan's building? That's the blood of the New Haven." We laughed. It was jestingly said, but in it was the tragedy that lurks behind most jests. The leading men of New England, trusting in the integrity of the Elder Morgan, had invested their family fortunes in New Haven stock. And wrhen the great blow fell, no men knew better than we in Wall Street of the many women, the widows of those men, who had come to interview their bankers on the wrecking of their all. Those strained, tear-stained faces of the New England widows haunted the Street for weeks. It was the bitter story of lost homes, of sons taken from college,, sent to work in the factories their fathers had once owned. The Elder Morgan inflated the costly bubble that disinte- grated the New Haven. Throughout his career he had trusted confidently in the future. And she was kind to him. He died before she could confront him with an accusing finger. The Elder Morgan died and we saw his son step into his place,, into his fortune and the seat in the banking house that heads the Money Trust and controls the finances of our country. Wall Street was breathlessly curious to learn what manner of man was this who now headed the banking world. Young Morgan, as he is still known, bears the same name as his father and possesses the same facial characteristics. He is tall, with a strong, athletic frame, a firm step and a pleasant face. 7 8 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET has He is popular among his friends, and no whisper of scandal been breathed against his moral life. The Elder Morgan had a genius for great financial operations, he built immense corporations, and was an art collector without being a connoisseur. He diverted himself by buying known works of art at the highest possible prices. There was a sort of bluff heartiness about the Elder Morgan even in his despotism. He once scandalized Wall Street by slapping his chief partner in the face. They called him a pirate, and the old joker dubb.ed his yacht the Corsair. When he died, I wrote his four-page obituary in the Herald. In order to get my material, I read about every- thing that had ever been written about Morgan, I questioned his friends and associates and consulted my personal experiences with the banker. When I had completed that obituary, I was struck by a most remarkable fact. Not once by a gratuitous and kindly act, in no incident of his long career had he displayed the slightest sym- pathy for his human kind. No wonder we in Wall Street were curious to learn the man- ner of man Young Morgan should prove to be. I think the first revelation came to us all as a shock. On February 21st of this year Young Morgan testified before the United States Industrial Relations Committee. Chairman Walsh asked him what he considered the proper length of a working day for his employees. "I haven't any opinion on that subject," replied Young Morgan. ' * What do you regard as the proper income for an unskilled ' ' workman ? I 1 ' ' There again I have no opinion. ''Do you consider $10 a week sufficient to support a long- ' ' shoreman ? "I don't know. If that is all he can get and he takes it, I ' ' suppose it is enough, and Morgan laughed. ' ' ' ' At what age do you think children should go to work ? "I haven't any opinion." The spectators at the hearing began to regard the witness with curious interest. ' ' How far do you think stockholders are responsible for labor conditions?" continued the Chairman. YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT 9 "I don't think stockholders have any responsibility in that ' ' matter, was the reply. "How about directors?" "None at all." The witness was so indifferent and unresponsive to questions affecting laboring men and the causes of industrial unrest that the members of the Committee gladly let him depart with the remark: "You are permanently excused, Mr. Morgan." Now Young Morgan would tell you that he is a private banker. He has resigned from most directorates of the banks and corporations with which he is connected. Yet he still owns and controls those banks and corporations, steamship lines, steel and iron plants, and the great world-wide financial machinery that his father raised, and for which his father's father laid the foundations. Young Morgan as a result of all this has immense power. It seems to me that there lies a source of uneasiness, if not acute danger to us in that the head of all this industry and banking, which concerns the welfare and personal safety of many millions of our people, should openly profess such unconcern, such a total absence of sympathy with his fellow-men. Of course, a man may think as he likes. But in our day it has become a sort of unwrit- ten duty that the man who makes a great and easy fortune from the labor of others, who controls the public 's money, and earns it from the public by the sale of large security issues, should exhibit some interest at least in those who work for him. I don 't recall a single instance in public life of another man confessing the sentiments that Young Morgan has avowed. We see that the laws of heredity have been observed, and that the son has inherited his father's indifference to his human kind. When the Elder Morgan died, his son at once sold the Chinese porcelains on which his father had spent vast sums gained from "financing" the Erie and New Haven. He sold his father's Fragonard panels. There had been some expectation that the son would bequeath to the public museums his father's art col- lections an act of expiation, one might say, for past plunderings of the public. But Young Morgan cared nothing for the public's good wishes. He wanted the money. We read in Carl Hovey's life of the Elder Morgan that the banker gained his education at the University of Gottingen. 10 WAR PLOTTERS OP WALL STREET Those early associations in Germany maintained a warm spot in 1 the old corsair's hardened heart. Now we see his son selling bayonets and shrapnel that savage Sikhs and Senegal negroes- may ravage the land where his father spent his youth. Young: Morgan has little sentiment for his father's memory.